There are many kinds of music. We could say: “Music is triumphant,” or “Music is tragic.”

We would understand that I am not contradicting myself. We would not say, “Why would anyone write a composition like Tchaikovsky. Why would a composer choose a somber mood? The music itself would have its own sweep and power, and would be beautiful beyond all concepts of good and evil manner, even a tragic composition of midst of the deepest emotions of tragedy, or even of defeat. In such cases the tragedy itself is chosen as an emotional framework upon which the psyche plays. The framework is not thrust upon its, but indeed chosen precisely because of its own characteristics–even those of despondency, perhaps.

Tasting those qualities to the utmost, from that framework the psyche probes the fires of vitality and being as experienced from that specific viewpoint, and the despondency can be more alive then an unprobed, barely experienced joy. In the same manner, certain individuals can do choose life experiences that involves great brings into experience, through comparison, the great vitality and thrust of being.

This does not mean that a tragic life is more vital than a happy, simple one. It just means that each individual is involved in an art of living. There are different themes instruments, melodies–but existence, like great art, cannot be confined to simple definitions.

From the outside, for instance, it might seem as if a young person dies because in one way or another he or she is dissatisfied with life itself. Certainly it is usually taken for granted that suicides are afraid of life. However, suicides and would-be suicides often have such a great literal lust for life that they constantly put it into jeopardy, so that they can experience what it is in heightened form. The same applies to many who follows dangerous professions. It is fashionable to suppose that these people have a death wish. Instead, many of them have an intensified life wish, so to speak. Certainly it seems destructive to others. To those people, however, the additional excitement is worth the risk. The risk, given them an intensified version of life.

This is obviously not the case with all suicides or would-be suicides,or all risk-takers. But those elements are there. A person who dies at 17 may have experienced much greater dimensions of living, in our terms, than someone who lives to be 82. Such people are not as unaware of those choices as it seems.

This does not mean that we cannot alter our experience at any given point.